


this will be our year (took a long time to come)

by biblionerd07



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Anxiety, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Domestic, M/M, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-17 17:50:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3538568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biblionerd07/pseuds/biblionerd07
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky's therapist is worried he's using Steve as a crutch and wants him to try going on outings without Steve.  It wouldn't be terrible, honestly, if Bucky could just manage to open his mouth and <i>say</i> something to Steve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this will be our year (took a long time to come)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [peachchild](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachchild/gifts).
  * Translation into 中文 available: [有生之年](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3818857) by [joankindom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/joankindom/pseuds/joankindom)



> This is for peachchild, for this prompt: _I really like fics that explore their relationship but also set them up as their own people - co-dependent but not in such a way that paralyzes them. I love weird misunderstandings and bad communication and them having to work through their issues and having happy endings, and I love things that take place in a very domestic, we-live-together-and-do-all-these-things-together setting. And of course, because we're living in a post-Winter-Soldier world, recovering!Bucky Barnes is always a joy for me._ I hope you like it!

After eight months of Steve chasing him across Europe, deciding to stop chasing him and go back to New York to wait, and Bucky wandering around D.C. and then New York to find Steve, Bucky is In Recovery. That’s some sort of official status, at the very least to SHIELD. Or whatever tattered shreds of SHIELD are left. Recovery for the last six months has mostly entailed tripping over his words in daily therapy sessions and eating peanut butter on toast at 3 am with Steve when neither of them can sleep. They have three Snuggies, a Vegetti, and an earwax removal kit they’ve never even opened. They’re not even sure if either of them build up earwax anymore.

They’re susceptible to infomercials. Everything just seems so _useful_. This modern age has thought of everything. Natasha has never found anything else funnier in her life. (She wasn’t laughing when she was sick and cold and borrowed a Snuggie and saw how convenient it was—they used to have four Snuggies.)

Stark is in a perpetual state of offense that they refuse to move into his phallic overcompensation of a tower. Sometimes Bucky thinks they should, if for no other reason than so Steve would have daily in-person contact with other humans besides Bucky, but he’s still leery of Stark. For one thing, he killed the guy’s parents, technically. And for another, Stark tries to ease tension with incessant talking and it makes Bucky twitchy.

So they live in Brooklyn, two blocks from Clint’s apartment building that everyone had been shocked to find out he actually owned. They have two bedrooms and two beds and they don’t talk about how they both start the night in their own beds and end up migrating to the couch together every night and fall asleep there, leaning into one another. They don’t talk about the way Bucky’s arm ends up winding around Steve’s waist by morning or the way Steve tucks his face into Bucky’s neck.

They don’t talk about a lot of things.

All in all, Bucky’s lived in hell of a lot worse conditions. They run together every morning. They trade off making breakfast. They take turns showering. They both go to therapy. They try a new restaurant every day. They spend long afternoons in comfortable silence while Bucky reads and Steve sketches or Steve reads and Bucky naps or they both read or no one reads and they both pretend they’re not sneaking glances at the other. They brush their teeth together and watch a movie every night before going to bed. They watch infomercials until they actually fall asleep. They argue over cleaning the bathroom and Bucky piles too many blankets on Steve and Steve pushes too much food onto Bucky’s plate.

Aside from the nightmares, stares he gets on the street, random flashes of horrible, painful memories, and Steve’s tendency to pretend he’s fine when he’s not, life is actually pretty swell. He falls asleep next to Steve every night and wakes up beside him every morning.

It’s not exactly the way he’s _fantasized_ the falling asleep and waking up scenario, but still. Things are going alright. He feels pretty good about life. He knows how to use his Starkphone and the laptop and has a tablet full of books Sam thinks he’ll like more than the history books Steve tries to push on him.

Which means, of course, that it has to all go to shit.

“Do you talk to anyone besides Steve?” His therapist, Julia, asks. She’s really good at keeping her face and tone blank so he doesn’t feel like he’s being judged.

“I talk to you,” Bucky points out. “Sam, Natasha, Clint.” He ticks them off on his fingers.

“I don't count. Do you talk to anyone you didn’t meet through Steve?”

Bucky doesn’t even answer. She already knows he doesn’t. He could argue the technicalities of Natasha, but he doesn’t feel like it. It’s still convoluted and he doesn’t seem to have the energy. He never really has the energy to talk much. He spends a lot (basically all) of his time with Steve, and he doesn’t have to talk so much with Steve. But everyone else needs _explanations_ and _communication_ and _words_ and it’s exhausting.

“I think you’re using Steve as a crutch,” Julia says. “I think you’re still afraid you’re going to hurt other people.”

“You’re not afraid I’m going to hurt anyone?” He challenges, arching an eyebrow. It takes a lot of energy to inject his tone with sass with Julia. When he does talk with Steve, sarcasm comes easy as breathing, but Julia’s an authority figure of sorts, and he didn’t exactly spend seventy years back-talking his handlers.

“I think you’re a lot further in your recovery than you give yourself credit for.” Julia doesn’t rise to the bait, and Bucky supposes maybe that comes with all the fancy degrees hanging on her wall. “But all the next steps require more hard work on your part and you’re not ready to put in the effort for it.”

Bucky bristles. “Listen, the last six months haven’t exactly been a walk in the park.”

“I know that, Bucky,” she says kindly. She’d asked him in their first session what he’d wanted to be called and hadn’t batted an eyelash at the name Bucky. “But if you don’t keep working, you could give up the progress you’ve made. If you’re not progressing, you’re stagnating, and I don’t want to see that for you.”

Bucky sighs. “So what am I supposed to do?” He always feels bad when he gets upset at her. She’s unendingly patient with him and never balks at the things he says, even when he tells her memories about HYDRA missions. She let him call her in the middle of the night countless times in the first few months they were meeting so he could babble about his nightmares while Steve sat in the hall and pretended not to be freaking out.

“I want you to do one thing each day outside the house.”

“I already—” Bucky starts.

“Therapy doesn’t count,” she cuts him off.

“Okay, well I do,” he finishes triumphantly.

“Without Steve.”

Bucky stares at her. “Um.” He licks his lips. “Look, I didn’t do a whole lot before all this without Steve, is the thing. He’s my—my best friend, see. Why would I want to do anything without him if I could do it with him?”

“It’s important to know you’re strong enough to be without him,” Julia tells him gently. “It doesn’t mean you stop spending time with Steve. Just one outing each day. Try two days this week. Next week we’ll make it three. We’ll progress from there.”

Bucky’s quiet all the way home from therapy, and Steve doesn’t push. This doesn’t happen as much anymore—in the early days, Bucky was practically catatonic after therapy, because it was dredging up all the awful things he’d gone through—but Steve still understands that sometimes therapy leaves you drained. Steve goes to therapy once a week, too, at the combined insistence of Sam and Bucky and even Natasha.

Bucky figures he can put off ditching Steve for a few days. He certainly doesn’t have to do it the same day Julia told him about the whole assignment. But the next day, Steve gets called away on Avengers business, and Bucky decides to seize the opportunity. This way he can do what Julia wanted without having to tell Steve he has to do it alone. Normally when Steve’s gone, Bucky stays in; they have coffee and food and movies in the apartment, and if Steve’s gone longer than two days Clint, Natasha, or Sam might come over to keep him company, depending on who went with Steve. But this is perfect.

He goes to the coffee shop on the corner. It’s not exactly a breakthrough; he and Steve go there every day after their run. But he thinks it’s probably okay to start small. Comfort and stability, he reminds himself. Julia always tells him it’s okay to seek out comfort and stability. And yet she wants him to go out without Steve. Go figure.

“Oh, all alone today?” Their favorite barista, a tiny girl named Alison, asks after looking around for Steve. Okay, so maybe he and Steve are ridiculous, if the barista considers them a package deal.

“Uh,” Bucky flounders. Alison probably knows who Steve is. Hell, she probably knows who _Bucky_ is. He could say Steve is on a mission. He could say Steve’s working. He could just say _yeah_. But somehow, tiny Alison is terrifying to him without Steve’s warm bulk beside him. He can feel his heart rate starting to rise. Alison’s eyes go wide.

“Oh no, I’m _so_ sorry,” she gasps. “You broke up? No, sorry, you don’t have to tell me.”

“Uh,” Bucky repeats. It is, apparently, the only word he can find.

“I just thought you guys were the cutest couple,” she says, and then she cringes. “God, that can’t be helping at all. I’m _so sorry_. You want your usual?”

Bucky just nods. He’s stuck a few sentences back on terms like _broke up_ and _cutest couple_. So Alison thought he and Steve…who else thought that? He can see the other baristas sneaking peaks at him and wonders how many of them gossip about him and Steve. Jesus. Does he need to find a new coffee spot? The thought almost makes him hyperventilate. He can’t go somewhere else. This is the place he goes to for coffee. He likes this place.

“It’s on the house,” Alison tells him sympathetically as she hands over his coffee.

“Uh.” Bucky sounds like a fucking broken record. He just nods and beats a hasty retreat. He’s so freaked out he ends up getting turned around and winds up two streets away from home. His hands are starting to shake. He ducks around a corner and stops to catch his breath. He pulls out his phone and hits his first speed-dial.

“This is Steve Rogers, and I’m unavailable. Please leave me a brief message and I’ll do my best to return your call. Thank you for calling and have a nice day.” The familiar sound of Steve’s voice, even in his ridiculous bond-selling-voice mailbox message, helps Bucky take a deeper breath.

“Hey, punk,” Bucky says. “Just calling to make sure you’re not falling asleep on the job. Looks like you probably are. Can’t let you outta the house, huh? Watch your six, pal.”

So what if he had to call Steve to get through his first outing? Bucky’s still counting it as a win. He tells Julia about it and she’s proud of him. He thinks he should also get points for making it to therapy without Steve, but she already said therapy didn’t count.

Steve’s gone overnight, which is the worst. Bucky doesn’t even bother going to bed. Falling asleep and waking up from a nightmare is bad enough without the added fear that would come from listening outside Steve’s door and not hearing his breathing. It always takes Bucky a while to reorient himself after a nightmare, and he knows he’d forget why Steve’s gone.

He’s seriously contemplating buying a rotisserie oven when his phone buzzes with a call from Steve. Bucky frowns. It’s 3 am in New York, making it 9 am for Steve in Switzerland. Steve should be in a meeting or a briefing.

“Hey, punk,” Bucky greets.

“What are you doing awake, jerk?” Steve asks. Bucky rolls his eyes a little. There’s no way Steve thought he was asleep.

“Kinda thinking we could use a rotisserie oven.”

“A rotisserie oven?” Steve echoes. “Hm. We could cook whole chickens. Do they do hot dogs, too?”

“Hot dogs?”

“Like at the gas station, they’re on a rotating thing,” Steve clarifies.

“Steve, what the fuck,” Bucky laughs. “You’re a fucking famous superhero and you eat gas station hot dogs?”

“They’re good,” Steve says defensively.

“Well, I don’t see any hot dogs on the commercial, but I’m sure we could figure it out.” They’re quiet for a minute, content with each other’s breathing.

“So, you alright?” Steve checks.

“You think I can’t survive a few days without you?” Bucky asks, like he didn’t have a panic attack getting coffee by himself.

“Who can?” Steve jokes, and Bucky can hear the smirk in his voice. Bucky snorts.

“Whatever, Rogers.” They’re quiet again. “I’m alright,” Bucky adds softly.

“Good,” Steve murmurs.

“Shouldn’t you be in a meeting or something?”

“Ah…” Steve hesitates. “Well. Yeah. I’m—I’m going right now. I’m on my way. I just wanted to…” Steve blows out a breath. “I figured I was missing the infomercials so. You know. Thought I’d see what I was missing.”

Bucky can’t stop the grin that takes over his face. “Yeah? You afraid you’re missing your favorite bra commercial?”

Steve huffs. The bra extender commercial always makes Steve blush, mostly because of Bucky’s dirty commentary. Steve’s not the blushing virgin he was in their youth, but it’s still easy as hell to embarrass him, and Bucky loves it.

“Obviously I was right to call, make sure you’re not blowing all your money on rotisserie ovens.”

“You think I’d use my own money? Yeah, right. I’ve got your credit card number memorized.”

“Hey!” Steve squawks. “Make yourself forget it. Right now.”

“Steve, please. I’d need HYDRA’s machine for that,” Bucky deadpans. Steve sucks in a breath.

“That’s not funny.”

“Come on, Stevie, laugh so you don’t cry, you know?” Bucky cajoles.

“I don’t want to laugh about that, Bucky,” Steve protests.

“Hey, alright, calm down,” Bucky soothes. “Go back to your meeting. I won’t order the rotisserie until you see the commercial, ‘cause I know you’re gonna get sucked in, too.”

“Maybe I’ll use _your_ credit card,” Steve says softly, taking Bucky’s peace offering.

Bucky laughs a little. “Good luck finding it.”

Steve hums. “I gotta go,” he says, and the regret in his voice gives Bucky a little burst of butterflies in the pit of his stomach. “I’ll be home late tomorrow night.”

“I’ll be awake,” Bucky promises wryly.

“Try to sleep?” Steve suggests. Bucky makes a noncommittal sound and Steve doesn’t push it. Bucky looks down at his phone for a minute after they hang up, imagining Steve holding onto his own. He shakes his head at himself. He’s getting sappy. If Bucky starts letting himself think about all the possibilities of the feelings between them, he’ll lose his mind. Again.

  
The downside of Steve’s return is that Bucky has to find a way to ditch him. He’s not happy about it, especially not because Steve smiles so wide at him when he walks in the front door that Bucky actually thinks he’s having a heart attack for a second. He curses Julia in his head, then feels guilty.

Steve rides the train with Bucky to therapy, like he does every day, and Bucky hesitates outside the door to Julia’s office.

“You can go,” he says, shooting for nonchalance. “I, uh. I’m gonna do some stuff afterward.”

Steve stares at him for a minute. “Well, what stuff? I can wait; it’s not a big deal.”

For some reason, Bucky’s words dry up, leave him, poof. It should be easy to say _it’s a therapy thing_ or _Julia told me to_ or anything, really, but his tongue just…gets stuck.

“Private stuff,” he manages to get out, and Steve’s eyebrows draw together. Bucky thinks maybe the only thing in their entire friendship he’s kept private from Steve is the way he feels about Steve, and he’s not even sure he’s kept _that_ all that quiet.

“Well…alright,” Steve nods, face still pinched even as he tries to force a smile, and then he waves and walks away and Bucky stares after him. He knows he did something wrong, but he can’t figure out how to fix it. He’s in a funk throughout his whole session, giving short answers without actually thinking like he hasn’t done in months.

When he finishes with Julia and Steve’s not waiting in the lobby, Bucky’s stomach drops. Right. This is his fault. He has to go on some outing—might as well since he’s already out without Steve anyway—but he’s completely drained. Nothing saps his energy like hurting Steve’s feelings.

Bucky ducks into their usual coffee shop just because it’s almost home and it’s relatively easy. Alison immediately makes a sad face at him and he has to fight the urge to run away.

“Steve was in here about an hour ago,” she tells him in a hushed whisper. “I think he misses you, you know? He looked really sad. I’m not trying to tell you how to live your life, but if you were thinking of getting back together…” She lets the sentence linger.

“Thanks for the tip,” Bucky mutters as he takes his coffee from her.

He tells himself firmly that he’s going to explain it to Steve as soon as he gets home. But when he gets there, the apartment’s empty. He opens a book and tries to read, and when Steve gets home he doesn’t mention where he’s been and just cheerfully asks Bucky how therapy went, and Bucky can’t figure out how to bring up what happened. Wouldn’t it ruin whatever good mood Steve’s in? He keeps trying to find an opening, a good place to say _it was for therapy_ , but Steve’s going on and on about Thor and Clint arm wrestling and he seems fine. Bucky lets it lie.

  
Things get weird. They get weird subtly, so for the first few days Bucky isn’t sure if he’s just being overly paranoid or not. Doubting his own feelings is a fun side effect of everything that’s happened to him.

But when he wakes up one morning to find Steve left for a run without him, Bucky thinks it’s safe to assume things are weird. He tries not to feel hurt. It’s not like they ever discussed running together. They just…did it. Actually, Bucky reflects, that describes most of their friendship. They’ve never seriously discussed much of anything.

Bucky takes a deep breath and holds it for ten seconds. He should get up and get started on his own run. Routine is important. But now he’s all out of whack. Where would he run? He doesn’t want to run on their regular route and risk seeing Steve. That would just be awkward. Although missing out on seeing Steve in his running gear is a true tragedy. But he’d rather miss it than see it and have an awkward encounter. Nothing seems as terrible as being awkward with Steve. They’re never supposed to be awkward. Bucky’s stomach starts to hurt as he worries and he tries to force himself to calm down. He’s made himself sick from anxiety before and he’d rather not start his day with vomit.

Five minutes pass. _Get up_ , he orders himself. It takes him another five minutes, but he does it, quite literally rolling off the couch. If Steve were here, he’d laugh so hard he’d fall off the couch, too.

But Steve’s not here. That’s the whole problem.

Bucky ends up running in the complete opposite direction of the route he and Steve usually take. Unfortunately, Steve’s bright idea of avoiding him apparently led him to the same conclusion, and their mutual effort to avoid each other means instead they run into each other. There are definite detriments in being so close you think alike. Steve’s eyes go wide like a deer in headlights.

“Bucky!” He says guiltily. Bucky can’t help but let his eyes linger on Steve’s chest, where the shirt he’s wearing is clinging for dear life, but he snaps out of it relatively quickly. He should just tease Steve. Act like nothing’s wrong. Throw an arm around his neck and drag him down for a noogie in retaliation for leaving early. Everything would go back to normal.

But for some reason he can’t do it. It’s something about the way he and Steve have been tiptoeing around each other for almost a week now, something about the way Steve sits farther away on the couch instead of pressing thigh to thigh, something about the way his eyes dart away from Bucky’s instead of holding his gaze the way he has since they were kids.

Bucky realizes, in a rush, that he’s _mad_ at Steve. He can’t even count the number of times he’s been mad at Steve, because that’s certainly not something new. The flipside of being as close as they are is occasionally driving each other up the wall. But he hasn’t gotten mad at Steve since he came back from his European destruction tour, as Sam calls it, and it all bubbles over.

“What the fuck, Steve!” Bucky yells. Steve rears back in surprise, but it doesn’t take long for him to recover.

“What the fuck me? What the fuck you!” He responds. This is familiar; getting angry and annoyed with each other and having a screaming fit about it used to be almost a monthly thing when they lived together before the war. Neither of them are known for their ability to rationally discuss feelings, and something about Steve’s ridiculous righteous anger at all times brings out some kind of rage in Bucky.  
  
“What’s your problem?” Bucky hisses, getting up in Steve’s face.

“What’s _your_ problem?” Steve shoots back, not backing down.

“You’re avoiding me,” Bucky accuses.

“You started it! Private stuff? What the hell does that mean? You can jerk off next to me but you can’t tell me what private stuff you have to do?”

Bucky’s mouth drops open. “I haven’t jerked off next to you since 1944! You can’t even count that!”

“Have you jerked off at _all_ since 1944? Because you’re sure acting like you need to!”

“Are you fucking serious right now? You’re the one who got all pissy after I wanted _one day_ to myself.” Bucky accentuates his words by jabbing a finger into Steve’s chest. That didn’t used to be nearly as distracting back when it was painfully bony.

“You told Alison the barista we broke up!”  
  
That certainly takes the wind out of Bucky’s sails. He takes a step back. Steve, at least, looks a little abashed. He ducks his shoulders a little and it makes Bucky simultaneously want to kiss him and throttle him.

A lot about Steve evokes that feeling in him.

“I went to get coffee after I left you at therapy. I thought it’d be nice to have it waiting for you. And Alison asked if I was alright after the breakup and she said you said we broke up, and…” Steve looks up at Bucky for just a second and shrugs before looking back down at his shoes. It’s a gesture Bucky knows well, sees in his dreams sometimes. It was something Steve first adopted when he was small, something to pretend he wasn’t feeling scared or insecure or upset, an effort at looking nonchalant and unruffled by whatever happened, and it makes Bucky’s throat close up a little.

“I didn’t tell her that,” he says tightly. “I…” He licks his lips. “When you were in Switzerland I went to get coffee and she asked where you were and I was starting to freak out and she…assumed? And I—I couldn’t…” Bucky blows out a frustrated breath. Why can’t he just make his words work? He presses his right hand to his forehead.

“Hey,” Steve’s right there out of nowhere, catching his wrist. “Take it easy, Buck.”

“I had to do stuff without you because Julia said so,” Bucky blurts. “I don’t want to be without you.” He freezes after he says it. So does Steve. They stare at each other for a minute, Steve’s hand still holding onto Bucky’s arm.

“Wait. What? Julia told you to do stuff without me?”

“I—for therapy. She said I was…I use you as a crutch. She thinks I need to go out into the world.” Bucky shrugs. “And I was gonna tell you but I—” He gestures aimlessly. “Sometimes I just can’t make the words work, Steve.”

“I know,” Steve murmurs. “It’s okay.”

“I didn’t want you to feel bad.”

Steve smiles and rolls his eyes. “Well. I mean, letting me sweat it out didn’t exactly make me feel _great_.” Bucky hangs his head and Steve backpedals. “Bucky, Bucky, no. It’s okay. I thought you were mad that people thought we were—whatever. Together. I thought it freaked you out.”

“No, I liked that,” Bucky says without thinking. He wants to punch himself in the face. When he _needs_ to say something, he can’t, but when he needs to shut up, words just flow? So unfair. Steve’s eyes go big.

“You did?” He squeaks.

Bucky’s voice is done for the day, probably. It’s not even 7 am and he’s pretty sure he’s reached his maximum capacity of words. Plus he’s made quite a fool of himself, certainly enough to last the rest of the week. He just shrugs.

“I liked it, too,” Steve admits, a blush starting to creep down his neck. Bucky’s head snaps up to look at him. “Actually, I didn’t like…well.” Steve tips his head a little as he searches for the right words. “I didn’t like that it wasn’t real.” He’s fully blushing now, bright red and unable to look at Bucky, which is a shame because Bucky’s face is all lit up with a smile and there aren’t many things Bucky likes seeing more than Steve going scarlet.

“Yeah,” is all Bucky can say, but it’s enough to get Steve to look at him. When he sees Bucky’s grin, he smiles, too.

“Yeah?” Steve checks, laughing a little. Bucky nods and they stand there staring at each other, blushing and smiling, and then Bucky rolls his eyes and grabs the back of Steve’s neck to haul him in, just like he used to do with noogies. This time, though, he’s bringing Steve in for a kiss, and he feels Steve smiling against his lips.  
  
They spring apart when another jogger brushes past them. The lady doesn’t even look at them, and Steve huffs out an awkward laugh. Bucky can’t stop smiling. He doesn’t smile wide the way he used to, not even for this, but Steve knows him well enough to know what the little uptick of his lips means.

They look at each other for another moment and then decide to get back to running. They don’t really talk about the kiss and their feelings. That’s not how they do things. They’ll have to learn to talk about things, at least a little—they could have saved a week of discomfort and potentially a lifetime of pining—but for now they smile and run and jostle each other with their elbows every few steps, racing teasingly like kids. Like everything else with Steve, it’s sort of the hardest thing Bucky has to deal with, but also the easiest, and things slot into place.

Later, they’ll go home and Steve will make breakfast and Bucky will steal Steve’s coffee to drink, and their hands will brush but instead of pulling away they’ll hold on for an extra minute. Things mostly stay the same, to be honest. They didn’t need to change much. They were already the most important part of each other’s worlds.


End file.
